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November's Journal
18/12/2025
Look at me with a before-the-end-of-the-month-or-even-after-it journal update!
Don't get to comfortable with it. Chances are I won't do another one before
some time in January when I'm back at my desk post-Christmas.
So Thus far December has been pretty good. I forgot to mention that in the
last week of November I attended a vendor day in London and came back with a
lot of cool 'swag'. I won a decent pair of headphones, a pair of earphones,
a £20 voucher, plenty of chocolate, and a few other small but useful things. I
even had a useful day of attending seminars and learned some useful stuff about
some software we'll be moving to in Q1-Q2 next year if things go according to
plan. But that was the last week of November. In the first week of December I
and a a few others from my institution headed to Barcelona for most of the
working week to attend a technical conference. This is the first "jolly" I'd
been on in over 20 years, but nothing had really changed. Some useful, some
boring seminars, a seriously hard sell by the company hosting the event, and
every evening was wall to wall food and people drinking too much. I managed
to escape by 23:00 most nights, so I was able to get up and go for a run each
morning before having to spend the rest of the day in a windowless conference
centre, but I still came away weighing more than I liked, and with a cold.
Absolutely no swag either, which was deeply disappointing. Also a renewed
hatred of short-haul flights. Still, I got home unscathed other than the cold
which at the end of the day wasn't too bad. I'm sure my immune system is far
less efficient these days given how much less interacting with other people I
do.
Last week was mainly about me getting over my cold and ensuring I didn't pass
it on to anyone else, then heading to Rel's on Friday for a family weekend
with her family. That turned out not to be the case in the end owing to an
unfortunate confluence of events, but we still had a lovely time with her mum,
and when we were just the two of us running, enjoying a nice warm fire, and
generally just being close to each other without anyone else around.
It's now the middle of the month, I'm one day away from my last working day of
the year, and then Rel, her mum, her mum's sister and partner, and I are off
to Austria for a "hotel Christmas". The first Christmas away from any kind of
family home for me ever (although I think Rel spent one in Kenya once).
Sadly I don't think even in the Austrian Tyrol we're going to get a white
Christmas (to judge from the web cam in the village) but we can hope. If
nothing else there'll be some good running (there'll need to be given) lots of
good food, and I hope a chance for us all to relax and unwind in one of the
more beautiful places on the planet that I've visited. More on that when I
next (last?) update this page!